How not to be a celeb

First things first: Fake celebrity swag is when aspiring musicians and DJs decide to wear dreadlocks on their heads and do drugs for no other reason than that they are musicians or DJs. I have been to circles of musicians and all sorts of celebrities who are into drugs, and every once in a while, I hear them talking about their habit. The up-and-coming celebs are more impressionable in their approach to the use of illicit substances, and on more than one occasion, I’ve heard a musician convince others that “all celebrities/stars/musicians take drugs”. Now there is nothing worse than picking up a habit on the mere assumption that “everybody else does it”. Don’t you have your own personal tastes and preferences? It’s like going to a restaurant and waiting for everybody else to place their respective orders, then telling the waiter to bring you “the same”. The whole thing smirks of lack of character, lack of originality. No wonder, the music business is today plagued by the ever rising scourge of plagiarism. If you can decide to inhale all sorts of substances on the mere pretext that other musicians do it, how sure should we be that you won’t steal a song melody from another musician, perhaps with the argument that “everybody else is doing it”?Learn proper dating etiquetteImagine that if a journalist wanted to make a pass on a girl, he had to gather newspaper clippings of all their memorable articles published in the papers as bait. Of course, that is not what we do. If anything, we get embarrassed just having someone mention that we are journalists in a private setting. Worse even, we don’t feel comfortable having our works read by someone in our own presence, especially if that person happens to be one we are hoping to make a pass on. We would rather if someone was interested in reading our works, they go and find them on the internet or in libraries.Not with musiciansIf there is some one that lives true to the adage that “man eateth where he worketh”, that person should be a musician. Words like “dating” and “wooing” are also unknown to some celebs, who think that the fact of their being a musician/DJ/celeb is ticket enough to any girl they want. They are not any different from those muscle men who turn up at nightclubs in body hugging attire, with the sort of body language that seems to say; “look, I’m Mr Muscleman. I call all the shorts and I don’t even need to dance or buy a drink. Can’t you see what time and effort it obviously took to build these biceps?” When we ordinary mortals try to make a pass on a girl and she shoots our efforts down, we eat humble pie, lick our wounds and move on. When a celeb does the same and is offered similar treatment by a potential suitor, the celeb will either act or say things to the effect that they were just trying to “help” the girl by approaching her. Some even go as far as to ask said girl if she is not happy that she talked with, and actually shook a celeb’s hands. Others resort to such lame comments as; “did you really think I was serious about getting to know you? You should know your class”. Hmm!Similarly when you decide to throw say a House or Birthday party, it is simply uncouth and even vulgar to attempt to turn the evening into a mini-album launch for your songs. The reason we came to your party is not because we wanted to hear your songs, but to drink your beer and eat your brochette. If we wanted to hear your songs, we would have already found a way to get a copy of them even before your house party. The decent thing to do is let your song play when someone requests for it. Don’t forcefully subject the whole party to your songs, because who says that we all feel them anyway? Besides, it is the reason you are a musician, and not DJ!Lest I forget, a celebrity is actually a person whose life we “celebrate” for their efforts (and successes) in a particular artistic endeavor. And the last time I checked, we did not celebrate brokenness. In fact, the only people I know to celebrate brokenness are our conservative Catholic brethren, who I’m told have something called a “vow of poverty”, an arrangement by which a person willingly swears an oath to poverty. But that’s church business, and the last time we checked, church and showbiz were oceans and worlds apart. What are we going on about here? That if, as a celeb, a mere newspaper reporter takes time off to place a call through to you for an interview, it would be simply ridiculous to tell the scribe how you won’t make it to the venue on account of your lack of money for a taxi moto. Most journalists that I know consider granting you an interview like offering you a free goat, after which you should not expect them to further supply you with a rope on which to tether the goat. Why not lie to me that you are away on tour instead?Lastly, take that music of yours down to the masses, to the smallest Primus-branded bars in the villages, not to SoundCloud or ReverbNation or YouTube, or all those other internet-based music streaming sites. True, social media websites are cool. But they are just ONE piece of the music marketing puzzle. Music record labels, artist managers, booking agents, etc are far more interested in the popularity of your personal website, not how many “friends” you have on MySpace, YouTube, Facebook or any other website that you do not directly control. Want to impress the world with your musical prowess? Build your own website first!

Lifestyle

How not to be a celeb